Dumping the Billable Hour by Mark A. Chinn [email protected] Tired of the Billable Hour? billable hour is responsible for a lack of balance in lawyers’ lives, negative impacts on lawyers’ families, loss of s every month a fight to meet your billable hour quota professional mentoring, decrease in lawyer service, less so you can meet the overhead? Is every month a collegiality and a loss of focus on efficiency. continual battle to encourage your staff and associates I No less an authority than The Honorable Stephen G. to meet their quotas? Does the production in the firm come to a complete standstill at the end of every month in an Breyer, associate austice, Supreme Court of the United attempt to generate bills? Do you hate reviewing bills? States, weighed in on the side of dumping the billable hour, Are you sick and tired of feeling like you can’t enjoy a writing in the foreword of the report, in part: cup of coffee with a fellow lawyer or staffer because you The villain of the piece is what some call the are “wasting billable hours”? How about Saturdays? Do “Treadmill”–continuous push to increase billable hours... you sit at home on Saturdays feeling guilty that you are How can a practitioner undertake pro bono work, engage losing billable hours? Or worse, are you up at the office on in law reform efforts, even attend bar association meetings, Saturdays billing? if that lawyer also must produce 2100 or more billable hours each year, say 65 or 70 hours in the office each week? From the client’s perspective, are you tired of hearing complaints from clients about getting charged $60 for a two The Committee’s technical task, then, concerns not just minute call? Have you grown tired of looking at a huge bill a better or more efficient way to run a law firm. It concerns that you know is going to be a shock to the client, but that how to create a life within the firm that permits lawyer, you know you must send anyway? particularly younger lawyers, to lead lives in which there is time for family, for career and for the community. Doing From a practice perspective, are you tired of accounts so is difficult. Yet I believe it is a challenge that cannot be receivable? Are you tired of dealing with clients who don’t declined, lest we abandon the very values that led many of pay the final charges at the conclusion of the work? us to choose this honorable profession. For most of us, the billable hour is the only thing we There have been three important ABA publications on know, even though we are sick of it, we don’t know what alternative billing: Beyond the Billable Hour: An Anthology else to do. There is an alternative and it is called “Value of Alternative Billing Methods; Winning Alternatives to the Pricing.” Billable Hour; and Billing Innovations New Win-Win Ways to End Hourly Billing. ABA and Other Leaders in the Change In Winning Alternatives to the Billable Hour, Hirshon writes, “The billable hour, such as it is, encourages too Work on this topic began with the ABA Law Practice many of the wrong principles and suppresses too many of Management Section Task Force on Alternative Billing the right ones.” Foreword, viii. Methods in 1989. This Task Force published Beyond the Billable Hour: An Anthology of Alternative Billing Methods. In In Billing Innovations, author Richard Reed minces 2002, the ABA Commission on Billable Hours published its no words about the demise of the billable hour: “[I]t is report. probable that straight hourly billing (billing by hours spent The report contained a preface by ABA President Robert without limit and without regard for the benefit conferred) E. Hirshon that discussed the many reasons for abandoning will virtually disappear in the years ahead....The time the billable hour. In the first sentence of his preface, he opines that “many of the legal professions contemporary See Dumping on page 4 woes intersect at the billable hour.” He writes that the Editor’s Corner by Randall M. Kessler Inside This Issue [email protected] www.kssfamilylaw.com Dumping the Billable Hour ...........1 hope those of you who attended the 2008 Annual Institute in Destin enjoyed yourselves. It was a great program and the Editor’s Corner ..................................2 Iweather, while threatening showers the whole time, ended up being perfect. Congratulations to Ed Coleman for a fine program. And I A Note from the Chair .....................3 would like to thank John Lyndon and Steve Harper for the photographs from Destin seen throughout this issue Local Attorney Awarded Top of the FLR. Next year, back at Amelia Island, will be another good time, so put it on your calendars now. Tina is already putting a great Professionalism Award ...................5 program together. Thanks again to all of our contributors, but we still need more Case Law Update: Recent input from family law attorneys across the state. How are the new Georgia Decisions ............................6 guidelines working in your jurisdiction? What about parenting plans? Please write about family law issues that concern you. I want to be sure we include all of Georgia, so please send in an article, or 2008 Family Law interview a judge or a respected local family law attorney (and take Institute Pictures ............................10 a photo). Have a good autumn and keep the contributions (articles, not Domestic Torts: Going Beyond the cash) coming. FLR Divorce Complaint .........................12 Confessions of a Guardian Ad Litem ........................22 If you would like to contribute to The Family Law Review, or have any ideas or Weighted Average Cost of Capital suggestions for future issues, please contact (WACC) - The Need for a Second Editor Randall M. Kessler at 404-688-8810 or Opinion ............................................24 [email protected]. Supreme Cork Invitation ..............25 Gregory A. Adams: Keeping the Community in Mind ...................... 26 The opinions expressed within The Family Law Review are those of the authors and do 2008-09 Family Law Section not necessarily reflect the opinions of the State Bar of Georgia, the Family Law Section, the Executive Committee .....................28 Section’s executive committee or the editor of The Family Law Review. The Family Law Review 2 Fall 2008 A Note from the Chair by Edward J. Coleman III, chair [email protected] t is with great pleasure that I send this first message as attorneys practicing in the metro-Atlanta area. But if there chair to my fellow members of the Family Law Section is anything I have learned in 26 years of practice, it is that Iof the State Bar of Georgia. I realize that I am not well some of the finest legal minds come from the most remote known to most members of the section, so I will begin areas of our state. And, as John Lyndon=s program at the with a brief introduction. I grew up in Atlanta (Dekalb Institute demonstrated, there are issues and challenges County), in a family of six children (I have five wonderful unique to smaller jurisdictions. Accordingly, I encourage sisters who now reside all over the country). I attended attorneys from every corner of the state to get involved in parochial and public schools before graduating from our projects, to contribute articles to our newsletter and to Emory University in 1979 with a B.B.A. (Accounting). I contact the members of the executive cmmittee with ideas then graduated from the University of Georgia School of on how we might improve our section and serve our Law in 1982. I have practiced law in Augusta since 1982 communities. In Augusta, for example, some energetic with my law partner, Carl J. Surrett. My practice is split lawyers recently formed a family law section of our local largely between domestic relations and my work as a bar that now meets about every other month and puts Chapter 7 Bankruptcy Trustee. My wife, Cathy, and I have on CLE programs. I have identified three modest public a daughter, Emma, who will be heading off to Valdosta objectives for the section during my term: State University this Fall. (1) Achieving geographic diversity among the section I have had the pleasure of working with the executive leadership. This is a worthy goal in my mind because of committee since 2003, and during that time I have met the different perspectives that it will bring to our work. many outstanding lawyers and judges whose devotion I hope to reach out by enlisting section liaisons in each to improving the practice of law in the area of domestic judicial circuit that can keep the section apprised of relations has been inspiring. The Supreme Court’s Pilot activities of local interest Project and recent legislative developments in family (2) Identifying an ongoing public service project that law have made for exciting times. I hope to continue the our section can collectively support with contributions section’s tradition of educating our members and serving from a large number of our members - ideally this would our community. be some service related to our field of expertise; and (3) to make available a more substantial body of In May 2008, our section hosted the 26th Annual resources for the section’s membership which will be of Family Law Institute in Destin, Fla. I am grateful and greater benefit to practitioners. proud of the contributions from all of our speakers and I continue to be amazed at the logistical support I look forward to continuing the work of the section and technical expertise we receive from Steve Harper, with the leadership of our executive committee and the Brian Davis and others from the Institute of Continuing contribution of all our section members.